We Hunt Bear

By Adam Heggenstaller, Editor in Chief, Shooting Illustrated

The season begins with 22 of us staring at a net of rhododendron that rises steeply to meet a lead-colored sky. Before long we will thrash our way through the tangled trunks and branches, metering our toilsome progress with boisterous shouts of triumph and profanity, but for now utter silence rings in our ears. The seemingly impossible task that lies before us weighs heavily on our minds. Our hope is to bust a bear or two on this slope, but we’ll settle for finishing the drive with unbroken bones and rifles. The odds of either happening are substantially less than 50/50.

We know there are easier ways to kill a black bear. We could go west in the spring when the bruins are stuffing their stomachs with new grass, find one in the open and shoot it. Or head north and spend a few days lounging in a treestand until a trophy poses over a pile of syrup-laced pastries. Even team up with a dog man and let his hounds do most of the work for us. All are sound tactics but none are legal in Pennsylvania, so we embrace earning our bear rugs through lots of sweat, some blood and the occasional tear when a whippy rhododendron branch connects just right with a sensitive body part.

More than any of us care to admit, our struggles are as necessary to the hunt as the bears. We’re two dozen men rapidly approaching middle age who sometimes need to prove—to ourselves and our buddies—we can hunt as hard as we did in college. We still own this mountainside, extra pounds, desk jobs and kids notwithstanding. Bears choose to live in this mess, and we choose to hunt them here. Because we can.

And so with cries that echo through the narrow valley, half of us push forward, carrying Winchester and Marlin lever-actions, Remington 870s and 7600s, knowing any shot we get at a bear will be fleeting and iron-sight close. On the other side of a half-mile stretch of rhododendron, the rest of our friends wait expectantly in an evenly spaced line that stretches across the height of the mountain. They’re the ones with the best chances. We’ll drive any bears holed up in the dense cover between us right into their laps. Gunfire is never a sure sign of success, but it quickens our steps. A blast that connects with a bruin brings collective glory. Individual accomplishment takes a back seat to that of the team. We don’t do this alone.

The longtime leader of our gang groups his acquaintances—and oftentimes society as a whole—into two categories: those who hunt bear with us, and those who do not. It is at once a simple and profound measurement that speaks to the types of bonds forged only when success is limited but efforts are tremendous. Those of us crawling through the dank rhododendron on this late-November morning hunt bear. We owe it to one another to make opening day.

Elkspeak

If you expect to wade into the timber and come out with a trophy, you'd better understand the language of your quarry. Elk make a variety of vocalizations—some music to a hunter's ears, others, not so much.

Bugle

It's the sound bulls make to attract cows and express dominance to the herd. Blow a bugle call to locate a bull then use it to keep tabs on one that answers you while sneaking closer.

Mew

Cows use this and other socially positive, high-pitched sounds like squeals and chirps to keep track of herd members. Learn to make them with a diaphragm mouth call to cover your mistakes during movement to contact. When you pop a stick underfoot, mew softly, as if to tell the herd, "Everything's okay over here, folks—just us elk moving about."

Grunt

A herd bull does this to cows straying from his harem in an attempt to keep them close. If you hear this you're close enough to determine if in fact a satellite is challenging the herd boss for dominance, and thus size up your opportunity to bag either bull.

Barks, Bleats & Whines

Cows warn the herd of danger with barks. They signal their calves with soft whines. And calves signal their mothers with distressed bleats. If you hear any of these vocalizations chances are the jig is up.

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Like the fossilized skeletons of its ancestors displayed in the Smithsonian, a 12-foot alligator can be scary even when it's dead—something that Shooting Illustrated's Adam Heggenstaller learned in person during a gator hunt in Florida. Read More »

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1976

The year that Sumner, Mo., erected a statue of "Maxie" to commemorate being the "Wild Goose Capital of the World."

65 Feet

Maxie sports a 65-foot wingspan while resting on a cinderblock building in a community park.

4

The number of cackling subspecies.

fast fact

The cackling goose, a smaller-bodied goose prominent in Canada and Alaska, is a tundra-breeder with considerably more black plumage than the Canada. At one time, the cackling goose was considered the smallest subspecies of the Canada, but is now recognized as a separate species.